


Ice and Stone

by SoulfireInc



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Dani Powell, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Brightwell, Cold, Dani is Badass, Drowning, Emotional Whump, Gen, Hypothermia, I am mean, Malcolm Bright Needs a Hug, Malcolm Bright Whump, Malcolm Whump, Prompt: Falling Through the Ice, So Does Dani, Whump, and more therapy, but like canon so if you're not a shipper (like me) you'll still enjoy I'd say, canon-typical relationships, oh well we love the whump, sooo much more therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:08:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27765019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoulfireInc/pseuds/SoulfireInc
Summary: Malcolm confronts a serial killer at the docks and it goes about as well as the rest of his plans. He called for back up, but he's still not great at waiting for back up.Bad Things Happen Bingo: Falling Through the Ice
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, Malcolm Bright & Dani Powell, Malcolm Bright & JT Tarmel, Malcolm Bright/Dani Powell
Comments: 59
Kudos: 172





	1. Sink

**Author's Note:**

> *Pokes head through pillow fort* Hellooooo? How are my lovelies? I have not written fic in many a moon so please enjoy this whumpy whumperton whumpfic. Hope you're all doing well!

Malcolm’s loafer slipped on black ice and he skidded, arms waving to keep his balance. Momentum kept him on his feet and he ran on, breath puffing in a visible cloud only to disappear as he sped through. The air stung his teeth, sinking needles into his exposed cheeks and neck. He kept his numb fingers in fists as he ran, an idle voice in the back of his mind noting that maybe next time he should grab his gloves and scarf before he goes running off after a killer. It was probably too much to hope that Dani would think to bring them.

The wind whistling off the Hudson was sharp and steely, not content to cool your skin but adamant to freeze your very marrow. It howled over the docks, rattling the chains left sleeping on the quiet cranes, moaning over patient freighters awaiting processing. It was a long weekend, and this entire quarter would be heaving with activity as soon as the sun made an appearance, the waters churning with ships. It would aggravate the silt along the riverbed. Bury the bodies. Tonight was the perfect time to dump the latest victim.

And if Malcolm didn’t find Dabb in the next few hours, his victims would be lost forever. And with them, the only concrete evidence to convict New York’s newest serial killer.

So, yeah. He was running.

A dull buzzing hummed into the air at his pocket. He ignored it, concentrating instead on turning onto the final stretch of the labyrinthine pier. According to a hasty Google the currents and dock orders intersected here, making it an ideal dumping ground and, crucially, it fit the potential dump zone of the original victim, Cassie Collins.

The dull grind of wire on rock grated into the air over his sawing breath and he pushed himself harder. As he raced around a sleeping crane, he saw Dabb.

Two bodies lay at his feet, already wrapped in stiff plastic. A cinder block was already tied to corded wire, the rest ringing free of its coil as Dabb wrenched enough to wrap around one of the corpses.

“Dabb!”

He froze for half a second, then turned fluidly to face Malcolm, who slowed carefully, breath puffing in shimmering gusts. He held his hands up, his expression open. His phone had stopped vibrating and he hoped Dani wasn’t far behind. His lungs stung with cold and strain, the fatigue of cruel nights shaking through his legs. He didn’t think he had another pursuit in him.

Dabb smiled, his posture utterly relaxed, hands clasped casually behind his back. Malcolm wasn’t a threat to him, not alone and out of breath on an abandoned dock. But that was good. Let him think he had the upper hand.

“Let me guess,” Dabb drawled, straightening to his full, imposing height. “You’re with the NYPD. Not a cop though. Cops don’t chase serial killers alone.”

Malcolm bit back a grin, taking a careful step closer. Ice crunched delicately under his sole. “You’re right, I’m not a cop. I’m a profiler.”

Dabb laughed, a full body experience. He stepped away from the corpses, accidentally or on purpose kicking the heavy spool of wire, Malcolm wasn’t sure. “I was wondering if I’d get profiler treatment. Tell me, then. Who am I?”

Malcolm took another step forward, glancing to the bodies and back to Dabb’s confident expression. Dabb was practically telegraphing his intentions. Malcolm was a witness, killing him was the only way to keep himself safe, to Dabb’s mind. Which meant he was playing for time, luring Malcolm in close enough to attack.

Which happened to align perfectly with Malcolm’s plan. Stall Dabb until Dani got here with her handcuffs. Keep him talking and, if it came to it, unleash twenty years of martial arts training. If, that was, his exhaustion let him.

“You’re smart,” Malcolm said, his tone low and earnest. He had to concentrate to stop his teeth chattering. He probably should have eaten something today. “And you’re careful. You don’t act rashly, not if you can help it. And you know New York. You know the Hudson. You know how to hunt, and how to bury your kills.”

Dabb’s grin grew. He brought one hand to his neck and rubbed, feigning bashfulness before returning it behind his back and rocking on his heels. “It is nice to be appreciated.”

“But you know that feeling,” Malcolm went on, stepping closer and stopping, just outside arm’s reach. “You’ve cultivated quite the following on the dark net. You’re a celebrity. Even the Surgeon’s noticed you.”

Dabb’s gaze flickered. “The Surgeon?”

Malcolm nodded. Lowered his hands slightly. The sharp, echoing slap of footsteps sounded behind him and his phone buzzed again and he glanced down, knowing as soon as he did it was a mistake. Dabb moved in his peripheral vision and as he looked back up he saw his arm swing out from behind his back, a bolt cutter held fast in his hand. It glinted in the low light and Malcolm had no time before it smashed into his temple. He crumpled, light and cold vanishing in an instant of baffling pressure. They returned in a muted explosion of tight, twisting knives powering through his mind as something solid and freezing walloped into his back.

The lights were smudged by the same thing that buffered his breath. His thoughts were disjointed, mired in something thick and cloying and metallic and what had been cold before was now startling, hypothermic. He tried to move a hand to the nexus of pain at his temple but he wasn’t sure he could find either. He was only aware he could see the sky when it was obscured by a sneering face with pleasure in its eyes.

“Looks like you’re backup’s here, profiler,” it said as it grabbed Malcolm’s shoulder and wrenched him onto his stomach. The movement was far too fast, dizzying, and it pressed his pulsing head into ground so cold it burned. He tried to speak but wasn’t sure it made sense.

A warbling screech rent his brain apart and he squeezed his eyes shut, images he didn’t understand flashing behind his eyes, scents that didn’t belong by the river ghosting through his brain. Cold, hard wire bit into his wrists. A fist grabbed his collar and hauled his torso up and more wire looped around his arms and chest. Vaguely, he was aware of shouting. A familiar voice. He thumped back onto the ice. The fist found his hair and the wire tightened twice around his throat, cutting off his air. His lungs strained furiously, his throat grating with the effort as his frantic heart beat against the wire gouging into his flesh.

Something heavy grated deafeningly against the ground and the wires tightened, pulling Malcolm several inches away from the pounding footsteps he thought he recognised. Above him, a contemptuous voice spoke, the smile pulling at the words.

“Let’s see how important one man really is to the NYPD, shall we, profiler?”

Further away, the shouts finally reached his dazed brain, right as the cinder block ground against the concrete and scraped into free space, yanking him over the pier and through the thin layer of ice coating the edge of the Hudson river.

“BRIGHT!”

The gunshot was lost to the cacophony of cracking ice. The shock of the cold was so profound it should have been a sound itself. Malcolm locked his jaw, desperate to hold onto his air, but he still lost several silvery bubbles to the chaos of his plunge. He watched an army of dancing silver riot back up to the light in a frenzy of life, the stragglers leaving him behind in the ever thickening darkness tinged with a sickly green. The wire cut into him, choking him, pulling him down, down, into a cold so complete he doubted even Edrisa could pinpoint his time of death. It was already inside him. In his marrow. In his mind.

He hoped Dani got Dabb at least. If she didn’t, he would just keep on killing and killing, finding new dumping grounds. He was adaptive. Smart.

Like Martin Whitly.

The Surgeon had never killed anyone like this, though. This was too impersonal. Too removed. This was more John Watkins’ style. It made sense, really. Malcolm had had so many close calls, so many near escapes. Ever since he was a kid. It was only right he should die at the hands of a killer. He was supposed to die at ten years old, after all. He’d had twenty years of tainted time, borrowed from the victims he should have saved, if only he had been braver.

It was only right. He was lucky, really. Drowning wasn’t so bad.

And he was used to pain.

His lungs had consumed his chest in acidic fire. It burned up his throat, concentrating where the wire tried to contain it. His heart gave it a rhythm, a gait, two levels of intensity so he could appreciate the momentary relief before each beat would send a fresh wave of terror-laced pressure through him.

The warped sounds of the river made no sense to him. The muted tinkling of the ships were ghostly, the strangled light ethereal and insufficient to distinguish his grave. Or maybe that was his brain, too starved of oxygen to piece together the last of his world.

But he did hear the billowing crash far above him, just as the block finally thudded to the river bed. Dabb must have dumped the other bodies. Well. He supposed it would be nice to have company. It was more than the Girl in the Box ever got.

Would Martin Whitly care he was dead? Would he grieve his son or just the lost enrichment of occasional casework?

His mother would grieve him. She wouldn’t survive this. God, he hoped Ainsley would. He hoped Gil would forgive him. Would take care of the rest of his family.

His lungs bucked in his chest and he closed his eyes, unable to hold his air back. At least it wasn’t suicide. At least he wasn’t breaking any promises. He’d even called for backup. Guilt festered in his gut. Twenty years and he was still the same coward he had been at ten years old. Making excuses.

A hand appeared on his cheek, impossibly warm, and he jerked, eyes snapping open. It took a long moment for the indistinct shadows to coalesce themselves into a face but when they did he was struck by how stunning Dani looked, bathed in green-black light. She looked mythical. Enchanting.

She’d come for him?

Her hand moved from his cheek to his neck, her gaze inspecting the wire tethering him to his death. She tried pulling on one of the loops and the others tightened their hold. His last few bubbles burst past his lips and his eyes drooped. She took his face in her hands and pressed until he found her gaze and he did his best to smile, to tell her with his eyes that it was okay, that she’d tried, that he was grateful to have known what it was like to have a friend. To have _her_ as a friend. He tried to say goodbye.

Malcolm saw understanding flicker in Dani’s eyes. Saw her recognise a darkness that had nothing to do with night and deep water erode his gaze. But he also saw that dogged stubbornness harden in her eyes. She drew herself closer, pulling his face to hers and tilting her chin. Her lips pressed over his and deep in his gut, beneath the churning fear and pain and mute plea for permanent silence, something small and warm and innocent flickered. Their lips formed a seal and air, warm _delicious_ air rushed into Malcolm’s mouth, forcing itself past the choking hold the wire had on his throat, and into his lungs. He barely managed to hold onto it, the urge to cough was so profound, but he tensed every muscle he could command.

Dani pulled away and levelled him with a look that that was an edict. _Stay alive._ He nodded, hoping she could see the wonder and gratitude in his gaze through the murk of the river and fear in his eyes. She kicked upwards, leaving him alone.

The river was not a kind place to die. It moaned at him as though mocking his new hope. The momentarily relief of Dani’s breath was already being scorched away and he tried to look up, into the light, but the wire cut into this throat and chest and wrists and he couldn’t bear it. He knew this was a deep dock. Twenty feet, at least. Whatever Dani was doing, she couldn’t do it fast enough to save him. Not in this cold. Not with the current pulling her away from the pier.

Malcolm closed his eyes, holding that last image of her face filling his vision. Of that determined blaze in her dark eyes. Dani Powell would do anything to save someone. Even if it was him. Maybe that would count for something, if there was an afterlife. That someone had cared enough to jump into freezing water, to give them their own breath, to save him.

The burn peaked. Silver danced past his closed lids, wriggling through his waving hair.

His last thought as the water surged into his aching lungs was a fervent hope he didn’t become one of Dani’s ghosts.


	2. Breathe

Dani broke through the icy surface with a bruising gasp, hands already clawing for the pier. It was at least four feet high but she found purchase and was already hauling herself up before she’d caught her breath. Panic zinged like lightning in her gut, tightly contained and frantically fighting that control. Bright was drowning. He had _seconds,_ not minutes _._ His eyes were never meant to look that dull, that fogged. Even after Watkins they hadn’t looked so resigned. And still the water clung to her as she heaved herself over the edge of the dock and rolled to her knees, greedily weighing her down.

“Dani!”

She glanced up and spotted JT pelting towards her, Gil not far behind. Relief was a momentary high but she pushed it away, looking back to the spool of wire and the abandoned body. There had to be – there, a bolt cutter, painted in Bright’s blood. She snatched it up and shouted over her shoulder at the rest of her team.

“We need a bus – Bright’s drowning! Dabb ran east, I got him in the shoulder!” She dove back into the frigid water, not caring if she brained herself on floating debris or protruding concrete. Bright was out of time.

Somehow, the water was even colder. It was claws of knives along her flesh, scoring through muscle and sinew, slowing her movements, making each stroke sluggish and ineffectual. It was too dark to see far ahead, too murky to tell if she’d judged her dive correctly. She didn’t have time to search for him. If she was off, if she wasted time trying to find him, he’d be –

She kicked harder. Pulled herself down into the iceless depths and ignored how her body’s natural buoyancy beckoned her away, how her lungs begged persistently for her to return to light and air and friends.

Bright was her friend. She refused to lose him. She refused to let her last memory of him be those striking eyes filled with acceptance for a fate he didn’t deserve, with some odd, pitying gratitude as though she were the real victim, as though his death weren’t the tragedy but her witnessing it, as though her being there was the greatest gift he’d ever gotten.

No. No, she wasn’t about to let that happen. Bright had been through too much. Survived too much. He wasn’t gonna die going after some damn serial killer he’d profiled in two days on three victims when by all rights serials should take weeks of study to pin down. He wasn’t going to die on a random goddamn night when she had remembered his goddamn scarf and gloves ‘cause he got so wrapped up in saving everyone but himself he always goddamn forgot them. No. Malcolm Bright was going to live to overcome his trauma because he goddamn deserved it.

And if the Hudson had a problem with that it could take it up with Dani.

The riverbed came lazily into view. Dani’s heart burrowed deeper inside her but she ignored it and turned parallel to the bank, swimming faster, clamping her teeth harder to stop herself trembling. He was close. He had to be.

The green-tinged darkness peeled back in shades. Swaying serenely out of the eerie gloom, was Bright.

The current played with him, gently pushing him one way, then pulling him another, his long coat billowing, hair waving. All the while he was anchored by the cinder block, the wire glinting at his throat, chest, his arms pinned behind his back. Blood curled like smoke around his temple, ghosted snake-like where the wire cut his neck.

His eyes were closed. Lips parted.

She was too late.

For a moment, the river’s cold won. Dani froze. Then the fire that had kept her warm since her father’s heart had stopped beating blazed with that furious heat she depended on and she swam forward, pointedly not looking at Bright’s still, horribly peaceful face.

She maneuvered the bolt cutters around the wire connecting him the cinder block and squeezed. Vibrations skittered up her arms as the tightly woven fibres fought the curved blades, but all at once they gave and the metal cords snapped. Bright jerked, floating higher. Dani moved the cutter to the other loop. Another tense moment as she burned through more oxygen than she had, and Bright was free. She kicked off from the ground, holding the cutter with one hand and wrapping the other around Bright’s middle. He was heavy, and without her arms to pull them upward the light seemed impossibly far away but she didn’t care, didn’t listen to the logic her pessimism was sneering at her, she just swam with everything she had, closing herself off from the agony that used to be her lungs, and never took her eyes off the subtle glinting light far above them.

Bright’s head was still on her shoulder, his body limp and lifeless against hers. She remembered that night after the club, when she’d punched him unconscious to save him from his terrors and, when she’d heaved him into his bed he’d turned into her touch, his expression soft and open and quietly beseeching comfort. How she’d lingered a moment, her hand caught between his neck and pillow, his pulse warm and steady against her skin and she had wondered how one person could hold such pain inside them yet still be kind enough to offer their trust to a wary almost-friend.

A fresh burn pulsed in the base of her throat. The river swept her tears away.

The light was closer now. Behind it, figures moved. They were so close. Dani’s jaw unlocked and desperation bubbled from her lips but there were still feet to go and the water was thick and Bright was heavy, dragging her down, and he wasn’t meant to be this still, this quiet, and he was part of the team how were they going to go on without him?

The surface broke around her forehead, thin shards of ice sluicing free like tiny flecks of driftwood. She raised the hand with the cutter and grabbed onto the pier, keeping their heads above water and gasping down razor air that seared along her throat.

“Dani!”

She glanced up to JT and Gil. Their breath panted in visible gusts. Relief melted through her muscles but she kept her hold on the pier. Her jaw clattered but she forced the words out.

“Br-Br-Bright’s no-ot br-breath-thing.”

She didn’t hear their curse over the wind in her ears. The air was like a thousand saws slicing through her, right down to the bone. Within seconds she was shivering viciously, barely able to hold on to the pier. She tightened her grip on Bright, pressing her cheek into his head as though that would help keep either of them warm.

A blur of movement and a too-loud _splash_ and JT was in the water beside her.

“Jesus that’s cold!”

“Y-y-y-you th-think?”

“Hold on, Dani,” Gil said from above. She glanced up at him. He lay flat against the ground, arms hanging down toward them, but still feet away. Another bout of intense shivers stole over Dani and she curled in on Bright who was colder than she was and completely, horribly still.

 _Hold on,_ she willed him. _Please hold on._

Beside her, JT was testing his footing under the water, hitching himself higher on the pier’s struts.

“Okay, I’m good. Dani, give me Bright.”

“T-take thes-s-se f-f-f-first,” she stuttered, holding out the bolt cutters. JT grabbed them quickly as Dani and Bright ducked under the waves, her kicking too slow now to keep them afloat.

JT chucked the cutters over the edge of the dock and turned back to her. “Now Bright.”

Willing her body to obey her, Dani pulled herself closer to JT and took a deep breath, getting as good a grip on Bright as she could. She heaved him upwards, pushing herself down, and felt JT take Bright’s weight. She scrabbled for purchase under the water and her foot found something solid. She pushed off hard, heaving Bright higher, and together she and JT levered him up into Gil’s arms. Gil grabbed the wire and a handful of Bright’s coat and hauled him back onto land.

Before Dani could argue, JT had grabbed her arm and almost threw her after Bright with entirely too much ease for her ego. He snatched her leg and pushed her the rest of the way and for a moment she just lay there, breathing and shaking, listening to the warbling _snap_ of breaking wire. She dragged herself to her knees and turned to see Gil standing over Bright, bolt cutters moving from loop to loop, leaving them limp like broken jaws. She crawled over to them as JT scrambled free of the river.

Bright was always pale but right now he looked like a corpse. His skin was pallid, utterly colourless, save the shards of red on his neck from where the wire had broken the skin. He was so still. So completely pliant as Gil pulled him against his chest to clear the wire away. This wasn’t Bright.

She meant to help Gil as he laid Bright back down, but her body had given up on her. It wouldn’t respond. She could only sit there, shivering, and watch as Gil and JT maneuvered Bright onto his back and began CPR, JT draping his dry coat on her as he passed.

Dani had seen CPR done before. Hell, she’d done it herself more times than she wanted to remember. But there was something about watching Bright’s unresponsive body jerk with each bruising beat that was … unsettling. Visceral. Something wrong about how his expression didn’t change when JT gave him rescue breaths. Maybe it was that he was so much colder than she was and she was shaking so hard it was painful, blurring her vision. Or maybe that was the tears, distractingly hot against her cheeks? Maybe it was seeing Gil’s face wrestle with composure when he took over from JT, the obvious desperation in his eyes, knowing he must be remembering the night he failed to resuscitate Jackie. Maybe knowing how important Gil was to Bright, how much Bright would hate to cause him this pain.

 _Maybe,_ a forbidden voice whispered, _it’s that this is happening too soon. Before crucial words were said._

Water erupted from Bright’s lips. His lax features didn’t flicker. Gil and JT kept pounding into his chest, kept breathing for him.

 _It’s been too long,_ Dani thought in the same note of crystalised shock as the day she watched her father die. Only this time she was covered in water, not blood. And it wasn’t her hands beating into the dead chest. Making the body pound with a hope that was as dead as they were.

“Come on, kid,” Gil begged, all composure eroded from his voice. “Don’t do this to me.”

Bright jerked rhythmically under Gil’s fists. Dani wasn’t sure when she’d taken his hand. It was colder than the river. Cold enough to bite into her skin. Too cold to ever be warm again.

“You can do it, bro,” JT muttered, voice low and fervent and Dani wondered when Bright had worn him down into comradery. But then, JT’s heart was as big as he was. And he took care of his own. This was gonna hit him hard. He still carried the ghost of every member of his unit that had come home in a box. And Bright was family.

Bright was family.

Gil bent and forced two more, desperate breaths passed Bright’s lips, but they all knew now it was too late. It had been too long. It was too cold.

“Please, Bright,” she heard herself whisper, the words broken, fractured things. _“Breathe.”_

But nothing happened. Because this wasn’t some fairytale. Gil sat back on his heels, looking older than he should. He was the only one of them that wasn’t soaked, yet his cheeks glistened.

JT rubbed the back of his head. His voice was low, husky. “The, uh, the bus should be here in a few minutes.” He turned to Dani. “They’ll warm you up.”

She just nodded, not looking at him. She was shaking from more than cold now.

“In the meantime, you should share warmth with Gil or me so –”

He was cut off by a desperate, tattered spluttering, chased with a ragged gasp. As one they looked to Bright and saw a column of water cough free of his lips, his eyes half open and unaware. They all reached for him, turning him on his side to ease the pressure as he worked to clear his lungs, each half-breath sounding excruciating.

“Oh kid!” Gil exclaimed, holding Malcolm’s head above the cold ground. “Oh, my kid, oh, Bright. Oh, that’s it, kid, just breathe, just breathe.”

JT kept up a steady, rhythmic patting on Bright’s back. “You are one tough motherfucker, Bright,” he half-laughed, sniffing loudly.

Dani didn’t have words. She was lightheaded. Even her shivering had stilled momentarily. How was that even possible? He’d been – dead. Hadn’t he?

She shook her head, beaming through hot tears that scorched her cheeks. She kept a hand on Bright’s shoulder, just needing to feel that he really was alive, was breathing.

His coat was sopping, the cut on his temple cleaned by the river but even in the low light it looked horrific. Thick blood clotted in the hollow by his eyebrow, trickling over his forehead as he lay on his side.

“We ne-need to get him out of his c-coat,” Dani managed, her shivers returning as the shock of relief lost its purchase.

Gil and JT nodded and Dani pulled Bright carefully against her chest, holding him gently there as the others pulled his coat and jacket free. Bright’s breath was a weak, staccato sigh against her neck, his skin colder than winter marble. She pressed her trembling hand against the back of his neck, her cheek against his uninjured temple.

“St-stay with me,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure if he was conscious enough to hear, let alone understand, but her heart demanded it be said.

They wrapped Gil’s coat around him, then transferred him gently into Gil’s arms as he was the best source of warmth they had available. Dani let JT wrap his arms around her until the bus arrived, and even though he’d been in the Hudson too, he felt like a furnace against her. She melted into his embrace, eyelids drooping against her will.

“He still breathing?” JT asked Gil after a few minutes.

Gil nodded. “Like a baby bird, but, he’s breathing.”

“That headwound looks bad.”

“Yeah.” Gil’s tone was quiet. Dismal.

“Any idea how long he was out?”

“I count at least six minutes since we saw Dani jump in.”

A pause.

“Shit.”

The significance of that exchange brushed against Dani’s wavering consciousness but she shied away, burrowing deeper into the comfort of JT’s warmth and the knowledge that Bright was nearby, in Gil’s arms, alive.

“He’ll be okay though, Gil. His mom’s loaded. She’ll get him the best docs.” JT’s voice softened, humming soothingly around her. “He’ll be okay, Gil.”

Another pause. The rhythmic shush of a hand on fabric.

“How’s Dani?”

“Warming up some.”

“She still conscious?”

Dani hummed irritably and both men chuckled.

A siren moaned into their bubble of calm. Dani sighed, knowing questions where coming. IVs, tests. Her gut twisted, shooting barbs of anxiety through her as Bright’s unresponsive face sparked past her eyes. His headwound. His aching breath. That look, in the water.

She sat up.

“You good?”

She nodded at JT, eyes already searching out Bright’s wan face, made all the paler by its contrast to Gil’s warm skin tone, tucked under his goatee. Bright’s eyes were closed, his brow creased in pain. Shifting light and piercing sound announced the ambulance’s arrival, tyres skidding slightly over black ice. Which was lucky, since that’s when Gil noticed Bright wasn’t breathing anymore.


	3. Smile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took like three 2020s, migraine disorders be migraine disorderin'. Hope you're all having a lovely holiday! I send hugs and nose boops <3

A fresh, frigid cold stole through Dani. She meant to move. To help. But something important in her had solidified. Petrified. A blizzard had howled that blaze inside her down to embers and it was all she could do to stay upright as JT moved to help Gil with Bright as the paramedics unfurled the stretcher from the ambulance, the lights stark and blinding against eyes she had forgotten how to blink.

They lay Bright on the stretcher. Opened his shirt to fit electrodes to it, the dull wail of his silent heart like a lance through her own. The intermittent red glow on his skin was eerie, flashes of momentary warmth between deathly alabaster glistening with the river that may still be his own personal Styx. One EMT forced air into his broken lungs with a bag valve mask while the other readied the defibrillator, and Dani meant to look away when the pads were ready on the skin and JT and Gil were ushered clear. She meant to stare at the drips wavering into the solitary yellow streetlight on the concrete under Bright’s stretcher, how the bus’s reflection obliterated his shimmering profile in a haze of rippling red. But her mind was as numb as her fingers. Her body wouldn’t obey her.

She saw him spasm when the EMT activated the defibrillator. Heard the portable ECG waver in its certainty that he was lost before being adamant once more. Watched red flash over white skin. Blood over alabaster.

Tight, painful convulsion.

Red, white, red.

An EMT breathing for Bright.

Blood and alabaster.

Dani closed her eyes.

The loud, monotonous note. Harsh, artificial breaths. The brutal, hitching buzz of electricity trying to bring Bright’s soul back from the riverbed.

Gil’s whispered, broken prayer.

He came back with none of the drama of the last time. No heaving chest, no gasping breath. Only the small, shrill machine told them Bright wasn’t lost. He still looked dead.

The EMTs worked in a tightly controlled frenzy and before Dani’s mind could break through the quagmire overflowing from her heart, Bright was loaded into the ambulance and JT had pulled her to her feet.

“You go with him,” he said, voice carrying an undertone at odds with its ubiquitous steadiness. “We’ll meet you there, sis.”

She nodded dumbly, teeth clattering together. Gil took her elbow as she clambered into the cramped space, his grip tightening for a moment and she turned to meet his deep eyes. The sight of them sent a fresh shock zinging through her heart. The spectre of those eighteen hours when Watkins had taken Bright was back in his irises, the same shadow that had darkened them in the third week of every October when Gil’s fingers were never far from his wedding ring.

“You did good, Dani,” Gil whispered. “You saved our boy. I’m so proud of you.”

Dani blinked. The chaos in her chest settled slightly. Something akin to warmth crept back into her heart. “Tha-thanks Gil.”

“We’ll see you soon. Get warm, okay?”

She nodded. Gil’s grip tightened on her elbow before it was gone, and an EMT’s hand appeared around hers, pulling her in to sit on the bench beside Bright’s stretcher. She glanced back to Gil and JT, their faces flashing crimson, concern clinging to them like a haze. Then the doors clacked shut, and the engine revved them forward.

They’d hitched up Bright’s stretcher so he was almost sitting, the straps almost cutting into his chest and Dani opened her mouth to ask them to loosen them, but the EMT was already speaking, questions and medical jargon filling the metallic cube and each syllable beat against her skull, losing meaning as the bus jostled over potholes and squealed over black ice. She answered what she could, concentrating harder than she had in years, her attention split between the EMT fitting a warm IV into her arm and making sure Bright kept breathing. They wrapped them both in emergency blankets, cracked heat packs against their pulse points, and by the time Dani had stopped shaking the EMT was all but ignoring her, his attention focused intently on Bright.

“How is he?” Dani asked, afraid to hear the answer. She reached across the tiny gap and wrapped her newly thawed fingers around Bright’s cold hand. He didn’t feel like a corpse anymore. She held onto that small flare of hope. Pretended that with it she could see past the dismal darkness she felt whenever she looked at his blank, empty face.

The EMT glanced to her as he moved the stethoscope a few inches on Bright’s chest.

“Serious. The concussion is significant – we won’t be sure til we run him through a CT or MRI, maybe both to be sure, but I’m amazed he was conscious when you got to him on the riverbed. That hit, plus freezing water? Guy should’ve passed out for sure.”

Dani couldn’t help a small, proud smile.

“Yeah, well, he’s got one hell of a pain tolerance.”

The EMT nodded, eyes widening. “I’ll bet. It’s more than that, of course. I’m pretty sure he’s had a pulmonary edema – there’s fluid in his lungs. Not surprising, of course, but given the temperatures and that it’s the Hudson, not to mention apparently a killer’s dumping ground? Yeah, we’re gonna be giving him _all_ the antibiotics. You too, for that matter.”

Dani couldn’t quite return his chuckle.

“Anyway,” he continued, clearly realising he wasn’t quite the thespian he thought, “the ER docs will give him a full check once we land. They’ll have to keep him a few days I reckon, bound to be complications with two cardiac arrests.”

“But,” Dani ventured, “he’ll be okay?”

The EMT looked at her properly for the first time. He was young, probably not long on the job. Definitely not long enough to know how to talk to people who were frightened and confused and needed answers. Dani remembered her eyes looking like his did now. She remembered it took her a few months to perfect her composure when she had to put her own thoughts and expertise and emotions away so she could tell a victim’s family what they needed to hear. Even if it was a lie.

“Yeah. Yeah, he’ll be okay.”

They had to ventilate him. And for that, they had to put him in a coma.

It felt a hell of a lot longer than fourteen hours.

~

It was an odd experience, to wake slowly. Peacefully. Malcolm had no memory of it. One moment he barely existed, suspended in warm nothingness. Then awareness fluttered by in ghosting touches, gently reminding him the world was waiting for him, coaxing him patiently back to it. Then, his eyes opened.

His breath left him in a sigh. Exhaustion pulled him into the bed which had him propped in a semi-sitting position. An oxygen mask was stiff against his face and he raised a sluggish arm to move it, earning a passive-aggressive twinge from an IV he hadn’t noticed.

A hand caught his wrist.

“Don’t even think about it, Bright.”

He turned, following the hand to a tired, smiling face. A relief he didn’t know he was waiting for washed over him.

“Dani,” he mumbled, sinking a little further into the pillows.

She guided his hand back to the bed but didn’t let it go. He wrapped his fingers uncertainly around hers, unsure how long he would be allowed this rare comfort but grateful for the contact.

“Hey Bright,” she said softly. “How you feeling?”

He blinked. Only realised when she squeezed his hand that it took too long to be called a blink.

“Good. Jus’ tired.”

Dani chuckled. “Yeah, I bet. You’ve, uh, been pretty out of it.”

He frowned. Turned to face her as much as the mask allowed. “What do you mean?”

She kept her gaze on their hands, her eyebrows rising in that way that meant she was hitching her mask over emotions she didn’t want others to see.

“I don’t know how much you remember but, uh, you … you drowned. In the Hudson. In January.” She glanced up at him with an empty smile, then back down as she needlessly pulled the blanket higher on his chest with her free hand. “We got you out but your heart stopped. A couple times, actually. Plus you were hypothermic. And Dabb left you pretty badly concussed. Hudson’s not exactly up to code so you had an infection. Basically they had to put you in a medically induced coma for half a day and then once they took you off the ventilator it’s taken you –” she glanced at her phone – “nine hours to wake up. But,” she added with a brightness that was entirely contradicted by the exhaustion in her eyes, “the doctors said your last bloodwork came back really encouraging and your second CT showed reduced swelling, so you should be fine.” A pause. “And by ‘doctors’ I mean Edrisa. She stole your file again.” She grinned, meaning to share the moment with him but Malcolm couldn’t shift the frown from his features. “You okay?”

“Dani –” He stopped and tried to swallow. Dani’s hand disappeared from his and moments later the mask was gone and there was a straw at his mouth. He sipped and clear, delicious water soothed the desert impersonating his throat. He nodded his thanks as she replaced the mask. “Dani, have you – you look like you’ve been here all night. Are _you_ okay?”

She stared at him for a long moment. “You’re kidding me.”

He shrugged, registering a deep stiffness as he did. “And you said, you said ‘we got you out’. But I remember. It was you. You came for me. In the water.” The image of her face bathed in green-black light filled his mind, ethereal and beautiful. “You saved me.”

Dani frowned, tilting her head. “What are you talking about? Of course I came for you. You think I’d just let you drown? Without even trying to help?”

Malcolm closed his eyes and shook his head slowly. She was talking too fast, his brain wasn’t awake enough to understand her tone.

“But Dabb got away,” he said tiredly. “You were meant to go after him. He’s just going to keep killing and he’ll adapt, Dani, he’ll find a new dumping ground, he’ll –”

“Bright, shut up,” she snapped. He opened his eyes and frowned at her. “First of all, we got Dabb. The concept of backup may be beyond your comprehension but the rest of us can actually grasp it. I didn’t just call JT and Gil, I called in some unis. They got Dabb. I caught him in the shoulder, told them which way he ran, and they headed him off. JT’s been questioning him for two days. Gil’s been helping, the two times he’s dragged himself from your side, and that’s only because he had to report to the Brass. JT’s only there because someone’s had to be, and he’s still been to check on you three times. Edrisa got here the minute she finished autopsying the two vics from the pier and only left because your mom used some form of one percenter etiquette Jedi mind trick on her. And yeah, I’ve been here all night, Bright. I’ve been here since they wheeled you in after your heart stopped the _second_ time _._ ”

“Dani, I didn’t –”

“No, Bright, you _didn’t._ You _don’t._ Don’t think I don’t remember how you looked – down there.” She swallowed, looking away, frown deepening, looking permanent. “I – you looked surprised. Like you expected me to just leave you there. And then like you just, what?” She returned her gaze to his and now he needed to turn his eyes away from the blaze in her dark irises. “Gave up? Did you want to die, was that it?”

Her voice was so soft. It would have been easier if it had been an accusation. But it was an invitation, gentle and genuine. An offered hand he was too tired to refuse.

“Yes.” It was barely audible. Barely a word. Barely covering the scope of what he was hardly capable of conveying.

Her hand tightened around his.

“I get that.”

He glanced to her, forgetting a breath. “You do?”

She nodded, her expression impossibly calm. “Yeah. Probably not in the same way you do, but, yeah. When I was a kid, I, eh … When my dad died. Came back a little, when I was undercover in the ring. With Estime. Not as bad, I’d … already won the war? And it was just a battle. But I know how it feels … to want it.”

“I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, smiling that most familiar smile, the tight-lipped one that meant he was being an idiot.

“No, Bright. I’m passed it. We gotta help you through it.”

He blinked. Swallowed. Glanced to their hands, still joined, and back to her open, honest face.

“We?”

She laughed properly this time, throwing her head back.

“How can you be this smart and still this dumb? Yes, Bright, _we._ In case you haven’t noticed, you’re part of the team.” She hesitated, shifting forward and holding his gaze to add weight to her next words. “You’re part of the _family._ And I don’t mean because you’re the profiler. I mean because you’re _you_. That means we’ve got your back. Whether you wait for backup or not.” Her voice softened. “But it’s a hell of a lot easier to help when we know where you’re bleeding, you know what I mean?”

Unable to speak, Malcolm nodded. Dani squeezed his hand and, pretending she couldn’t see his tears, she stood.

“I’m gonna let the nurses know you’re awake. They’re probably gonna wanna make sure you’re still a smartass.”

He meant to laugh at that, but it sounded more like a sob.

“You’re gonna be okay, Bright,” Dani whispered, leaning over him to press a gentle kiss into his forehead. “We got you.”

She was at the door before he found his voice again.

“Dani?”

The handle clanked as she pressed it.

“Yeah, Bright?”

_“Thanks.”_ He sniffed, willed his voice to be level. “And if – if you ever need backup, I’ve got you too.”

She beamed at him.

“I know, Bright. I’m actually a lot smarter than you.” She stuck her tongue out and disappeared around the squeaking door. Malcolm chuckled to himself, wrapping an arm around his protesting ribs.

No argument there.


End file.
